Americans Are Starting To Hate Beer

Millennials' changing tastes are loosening beer's stranglehold on
the U.S. alcohol market.

That's the story
from Ad Age's E.J. Schultz, who reports that the growth in
popularity of wine and spirits has caused beer's share of the
total domestic booze market to plummet by more than 7% since
1999.

Now, beer makes up just 48.8% of alcohol sales in the U.S. In
other words, for the first time in decades, a majority of
Americans are NOT choosing beer as their No.1 booze.

Chief among the victims are the two biggest beer manufacturers,
MillerCoors and Anheuser-Busch InBev, who are losing market share
not only to novelty flavored liquors — like Smirnoff Cinna-Sugar
Twist — but also to craft beers that have fragmented the market.
"Eight of the top 10 u.s. beer brands lost share at stores in the
52 weeks ended Aug. 11," Ad Age notes, referring to brands like
Budweiser, Bud Light, and Coors Light.

As evidenced by Guinness'
fantastic wheelchair basketball ad that launched a few weeks
back, the industry is working to produce ads with fewer cheap
laughs and scantily clad women. If the industry can present
beer-drinking as something a woman might also like to do, it just
might be able to turn things around.